Chapter 395| Three Steps. Done.

?The steel door of the command post shuddered from a heavy blow outside.

?The heavy steel plate gave way, crashing inward against the obsidian wall and sending shards of black stone flying. Four Iron Empire soldiers stormed the room, swords drawn, their eyes scanning every inch of the cramped space.

?Empty.

?The stone table remained in place, its relief map gouged at one corner. Splinters of a shattered wooden chair littered the floor. The oil lamp had been snuffed out, its glass shards scattered among the wooden debris. Deep reddish-purple runes along the walls pulsed sluggishly, utterly indifferent to the intruders.

?Not a soul in sight. One of the soldiers kicked the heavy stone table, as if hoping to flush out someone cowering behind it. Nothing.

?Only seconds earlier, Rianor had already slipped into the narrow passage behind the walls.

?This particular tunnel wasn’t recorded on any of the ancient Dwarven maps. It was far too cramped for an army to march through, and too dark to spot unless you knew exactly where to look. Rianor had discovered it just hours before the fighting broke out, meticulously inspecting the command post’s walls inch by inch. At the time, he simply logged it as a contingency route. Now, it was the sole reason he was still breathing.

?Pressing his back flush against the stone, he shimmied through the claustrophobic gap. The rock here was freezing and damp, a stark contrast to the sweltering heat of the room he had just fled. His cracked glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, but he didn’t dare waste a second to adjust them. He counted his steps silently. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. The rhythmic numbers grounded him, drowning out the frantic noise echoing behind him.

?Faintly, the heavy clanking of iron boots echoed from the rear. The Iron Empire soldiers had finally realized they had been played. Rianor didn’t look back. Glancing over his shoulder was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

?The narrow passage finally spilled out into a jagged fissure overlooking the main tunnel. Rianor dropped down, catching his fall with his right arm. The cut across his forearm flared with agonizing, stinging pain. He bit his lip, swallowing a groan, before scrambling to his feet and hurrying down the main corridor, putting as much distance between himself and the command post as possible.

?The relentless footsteps trailing him slowly faded into silence. Maybe the soldiers hit a dead end. Maybe they gave up the chase. Rianor wasn’t about to stick around to find out.

?He leaned back against the cold stone, forcing his ragged breathing to steady. His heart hammered in his chest, but his hands weren’t shaking. For now, that was enough.

?The muffled roar of battle still echoed from the western tunnel. Riven was holding the line.

?Rianor raised his right hand, staring at his bloodied palm. The gash had scabbed over, but it stung fiercely with every twitch of his fingers. The Arcanotech Bracer encasing his left arm remained completely dead, deadweight dragging him down like a piece of useless scrap metal.

?He was alive. His mind was sharp. In this moment, that was all the arsenal he needed.

?He pressed his palm flat against the stone floor, reading the tremors. From the western tunnel, the chaotic rhythm of combat was holding steady. But from the logistics route? Nothing. It was far beyond his sensory range. Borch and Thorne were entirely on their own now.

?Rianor closed his eyes for a fleeting second, then snapped them open. There were no more moves left to play on this board. All he could do was wait and pray his calculations were flawless.

?The rest was up to them.

?• • •

?Ten minutes earlier.

?The midnight wind howling across the ridges of the Eastern Mountains bit with a freezing edge. A noxious stench of coal smoke and hot metal drifted up from the sprawling Iron Empire encampment nestled in the valley below. Thick clouds choked the moon, leaving only a smattering of pale starlight to cut through the dark.

?Borch moved in a low crouch along the ridge, his sweeping black coat seamlessly melding into the jagged shadows of the rocks. Thorne trailed right behind him, short spear gripped tight, his footfalls light, calculated, and perfectly silent.

?Borch halted at the very edge of the ridge and dropped to a prone position.

?Far below, a massive steam train railway cut a straight line between two sheer rock faces. The twin steel rails caught the faint starlight, gleaming like a silver thread in the abyss. This single artery was the absolute lifeline connecting General Grigori’s frontline forces to the Iron Empire’s industrial capital. Every ounce of rations, fuel, and ammunition feeding those four divisions had to run through this exact chokepoint.

?Borch produced a crumpled map from inside his coat. He had sketched it himself, relying entirely on the logistical data Rianor had fed him. Three specific coordinates were circled in red. The fuel reserves to the north. The central ammunition depot. The primary supply cache to the south.

?Thorne shot the map a brief look and gave a single nod. No further explanation was needed.

?Borch pocketed the map and unslung the Gauss Rifle from his back. The Arcanotech weapon felt heavier than he remembered, the metal biting cold against his palms, but his muscle memory took over instantly. Flattening himself against the rock, he stabilized the long barrel over a jagged granite outcrop. The tactical scope whirred to life, bathing his eye in a faint green glow as it fed him the telemetry: distance, elevation, and crosswind velocity.

?Nine hundred meters. Wind from the west, three meters per second.

?Thorne posted up beside him, pressing his back against the boulder, his sharp eyes scanning the ridge covering their rear. He didn’t need to be told to keep quiet. His only job was to ensure no patrols flanked them while the sniper went to work.

?Borch drew in a slow, deep breath, trapping the air in his lungs. His finger gently curled around the trigger.

?The first shot broke with a suppressed, high-pitched magnetic hiss—barely a whisper over the wind. The hyper-accelerated projectile crossed the nine-hundred-meter gap in a fraction of a second.

?Down in the northern sector, a tiny, blinding pinpoint of light flared near the fuel reserves. Then, the valley erupted. A towering pillar of orange fire tore into the night sky, instantly outshining the moon. A split-second later, a secondary detonation ripped through the compound, far more violent than the first. The entire fuel stockpile was reduced to cinders in the blink of an eye.

?Borch didn’t waste time admiring his handiwork. He instantly pivoted, tracking his crosshairs onto target number two.

?The second shot cracked. The central munitions depot detonated. A cascading chain reaction of massive explosions walked straight down the railway, popping off one after another like a string of colossal firecrackers. Idle transport cars were violently shredded into shrapnel. The heavy steel rails buckled, snapping and spiraling into the air as a firestorm swallowed the tracks.

?Borch shifted his rifle one last time, locking onto the southern perimeter.

?The third shot flew. The southern supply cache went up in flames. The inferno rapidly leaped from canvas tent to canvas tent, ruthlessly devouring every ounce of food, water, and medical provisions meant for the invasion force.

?Borch powered down the Gauss Rifle and pushed himself up from the dirt. Below them, the Iron Empire’s pristine logistical artery had been reduced to a raging sea of hellfire. Billowing columns of thick, toxic black smoke blotted out the stars. Three massive craters of fire burned with terrifying intensity, linked together by the mangled, molten remains of the railway.

?Three steps. Done.

?Thorne rose to his feet, casually dusting off his dark blue uniform. Without a word, the two assassins turned their backs on the carnage and sprinted down the backside of the ridge, vanishing into the pitch-black mountain wilderness long before the frantic shrieks of the first alarm sirens rang out from the command tents.

?• • •

?Down in the western tunnel, Riven felt something shift.

?It wasn’t the localized tremors of close-quarters combat. It wasn’t the rhythmic marching of boots. This vibration was massive, deep, and originating from way above on the surface. The stone beneath his boots hummed with a low frequency, as if something unfathomably heavy was collapsing miles away.

?He raised his head, holding his breath to ensure he wasn’t just feeling a random cave-in.

?Across the bubbling magma chasm, the remnants of the Iron Empire’s 1st and 2nd Divisions felt it too. Soldiers paused in their tracks, tipping their helmets upward to stare at the cavern ceiling. Nervous whispers rippled through the ranks. Some turned their gaze back toward the direction of the surface ridge, as if trying to peer straight through miles of solid rock.

?Then, the orange glow appeared.

?It painted the northern horizon, bleeding through the massive ventilation fissures near the ceiling of the cavern. It was quickly joined by two more unnatural sunbursts blooming from the center and the south. Seconds later, the shockwaves hit. A deafening, delayed roar rumbled through the earth, violently shaking the cavern walls and sending a shower of loose dust raining down on the combatants.

?Across the chasm, an Iron Empire soldier’s sword slipped from his trembling grip, clattering against the stone. Entire squads took involuntary steps backward, staring upward with wide, terrified eyes.

?Riven slowly lowered his guard, letting his heavy axe rest. The runes etched into the blade pulsed with a dimming crimson light, mirroring his decelerating heartbeat. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a predatory smirk—a cold, ruthless smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

?He didn’t have to ask who pulled the trigger. This had Rianor’s fingerprints all over it. That brilliant kid never struck where the enemy expected. He always bypassed the armor to strike the exact nerve needed to cripple a giant.

?The gruff, red-bearded Dwarven warrior beside him stared up at the fractured ceiling in sheer disbelief. He glanced at Riven, then quickly looked back up at the inferno illuminating the fissures. Words failed them all.

?The aftershocks from the surface grew more violent as delayed munitions continued to cook off. Then, cutting through the chaos, the long, mournful blast of a horn echoed down the tunnel from the direction of the Iron Empire’s command camp.

?It wasn’t the call to charge. It was the order to retreat.

?The stranded remnants of the 1st and 2nd Divisions responded instantly. Discipline overriding panic, they pivoted on their heels and marched away from the chasm, pulling back without a single backward glance. On Riven’s side of the gorge, the few surviving stragglers of the 3rd and 4th Divisions—battered, exhausted, and dripping with blood—slowly dropped their steam rifles and bayonets to the floor. Not every single man surrendered, but enough of them did. The fight was completely bled out of them.

?Riven let his axe drop fully. The heavy steel head clinked softly against the stone floor.

?He turned around, casting a long look down the dark tunnel leading back toward the command post. Toward Rianor.

?They were alive. Everyone was still alive.

?Riven let out a long, ragged exhale. For the very first time since the siege began, the tension finally bled from his broad shoulders. Behind him, the unbroken phalanx of twenty Dwarven warriors began to lower their glowing warhammers and axes, suddenly hit with the crushing exhaustion that had been staved off by adrenaline for hours.

?• • •

?Rianor was still slumped against the wall of the main corridor when the shockwaves finally traveled deep enough to reach him.

?Detonations. Rumbles. And then, the retreat horn.

?He didn’t need to calculate the variables to know what it meant. Borch and Thorne had pulled it off.

?He turned his head, gazing down the pitch-black path leading back to the throne room. Roland, the Dwarven King, Naya, and Dom were all back there. They had definitely felt the tremors by now, likely piecing together the exact same conclusion.

?Rianor pressed his palm flat against the trembling stone. The vibrations were already subsiding. The frantic spikes of close-quarters combat from the western tunnel had completely vanished. Far above on the surface, the heavy, rhythmic marching of the Iron Empire’s boots was pulling back—still disciplined, but undeniably in full retreat.

?Closing his eyes, he exhaled a long, shaky breath. He let his exhausted body slide an inch further down the wall, finally allowing himself a moment of weakness.

?But this war was far from over.

?General Grigori was still out there, and the seasoned veteran wasn’t the type to fold simply because his logistics went up in flames. Crown Prince Adrian was still out there, representing the very throne that orchestrated this massacre. And far away in the capital, Emperor Regulus still sat upon his throne, eagerly awaiting a victory report that would never arrive the way he intended.

?But tonight, they had achieved the impossible. The supply lines were severed. The Iron Empire was forced to retreat. And every single person he gave a damn about was still breathing. For one night, that was more than enough.